ʘηԑԑ–ʂαη
by Black-Cat-Ligeia
Summary: It was believed that Alice would come back after she left the Country of Hearts. Unfortunately, she didn't.. Someone else took her place.
1. Prologue

_Inuyasha_ © Rumiko Takahashi  
><em>JokerClover/Heart no Kuni no Alice_© QuinRose

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><p>The residence of the Country of Hearts knew, even if they hadn't wanted to believe it, that there would come a day that Alice Liddell would return back to her world. Back to where she belonged, she claimed; however, some held hope that she would be brought back by someone who dearly loved her.<p>

They were wrong.

No one left to retrieve the girl that many had fallen in love with. It was back to the way things were before the foreigner came into their lives.

To say that the news of a different foreigner replacing Alice some time later was surprising. It was a well-known fact that Peter was absolutely smitten with Alice, and hadn't been the one to bring the new girl to the Country of Hearts. If anything, he would've brought Alice back.

Speculations of who might've brought the girl to their world circulated like wildfire. There were even rumors of what she looked like-having this hair colour or that, her eyes being so-and-so colour, and so on so forth.

No one knew where it was that she was, though. Few of the Role Holders had asked Julius if he had met the rumored new foreigner. To their disappointment, he hadn't met her.

Whoever had met her, was keeping quiet.

* * *

><p><em>"How much longer am I going to be kept here?"<em>

Nightmare tilted his head at the oriental woman, listening as she yelled at him in her native tongue, pointing at him, flailing her arms this way and that. The small smile on his face grew larger as he couldn't help, but give a chuckle at her temper tantrum with the shivers that it sent spiraling down his spine.

_"What is with you? You're being rude, ya know!"_

Was it wrong of him to admit to loving her temper and quick tongue? The incubus set his feet on the ground from his previous floating position, making his way over to the blue-eyed woman. The gray-haired male squatted down to look her in the eyes as she stared back at him fiercely from her place sitting on the sand, "You're quite amusing~"

She gaped at him, _"Amusing? I'm not a toy!"_

Nightmare closed his eye As he hummed in thought, "I know-"

_"Then why'd you call me 'amusing?'"_

"-and the foreigner before you hadn't been this fierce with her temper."

Blue eyes narrowed at the male, causing him to lose his grin and his upper face to be shadowed from the dark look she sent him. She crossed her arms as he started to shiver, looking slightly ill.

Her brow twitched tenfold as the incubus started to cough up blood, splattering her arms and upper chest before he retreated a small distance from her with his hand over his mouth as his other hand searched his pockets for a handkerchief.

The blue-eyed girl clenched her fists, opting to ignore the blood for now as she directed her anger at the man, _"Am I a replacement for the previous 'foreigner'? I've already had to deal with being a replacement before, and I refuse to deal with the position again!"_

Nightmare glanced over at the girl, taking in the tears that were welling up in the corners of her eyes. He gave a cough, before shaking his head, "You're not a replacement!"

_"I don't believe you.."_

"If you really want, I can bring you to the Country of hearts and have the Role Holders prove it to you that you're not a replacement for the girl that was here before you."

The black-haired girl looked down at the sand she was sitting on, not quite willing to take the incubus up on his offer, but a small part of her wanted nothing more than to agree and have herself proven wrong. Her arms uncrossed her bloodied chest, her fingers made miscellaneous patterns in the sand, indecisive about the offer.

"What's there to be indecisive about?" The eye patch-donning male asked, "I'm sure people will love you!"

A handful of sand was thrown in his direction, _"If it gets me away from you and your creepy mind reading, I'll do it!"_

Nightmare gave a weak cough as he started to laugh, "That's the spirit~"

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue is short, and I'm asking for the bare minimum of constructive criticism to know what I'm doing right and wrong with this series. I need to stop writing stories on my iPhone.. Give me a couple of days to remember where I was going with my stories on my other account, and I'll start to update them again—and it's no surprise that I've fallen out with <em>Kuroshitsuji<em>.**


	2. Chapter 1

_Inuyasha_ © Rumiko Takahashi  
><em>JokerClover/Heart no Kuni no Alice_ © QuinRose

* * *

><p>Kagome let her eyes roam over the forest that she had been carelessly left in by the gray-haired incubus once he let her out of the spirit realm he had confined her to. The air was different than it was back home, there was no pollution, but it wasn't the absolute cleanliness of Feudal Era Japan—<em>where everyone she cared for resided..<em>

She brought a knuckle up to her mouth to keep herself from crying. She hated the fact that she had been forced to leave with no choice in the matter without having been able to tell everyone about it first. At least then they would have been prepared for this who-knows-how-long absence.

_"Damn that incubus.."_

Normally, Kagome was a caring person; however, being forced into traveling into the past because of the Shikon no Tama was one thing. This.. She didn't even know what to classify this as! Was there even a way for her to get back to her home, to the people she cares about?

Her eyes stung with unsure tears as her gaze remained fixated on the base of a nearby tree that she was no longer able to tell through distinction, but by it's general colours.

Were any of her friends looking for her? _Oh dear.._ The blue-eyed girl let go of her knuckle to cover her entire mouth, what was Shippou doing to cope with her disappearance?

A small hiccup escaped passed her hand into the air, and Kagome closed her eyes, free hand clenched at her side.

_The sight of seeing the man wearing an eye patch in her mother's living room sent off alarm bells in the back of her mind, distracting her momentarily from leaving to go back to the past. Her choice had been made up, and she was going to live back with Inuyasha and all the others despite having been born in modern times._

_"Kagome, why don't you greet our guest before you go?" Her mother may not have showed it, but was desperate for the last few moments with her daughter before she left them permanently._

_The blue-eyed girl looked between the pale male and her mother's gently inquisitive eyes, any automatic decline shriveling up on the back of her tongue as she heaved a sigh, "All right."_

_The smile sent to her by her mother tore at her heart._

_Kagome set down her well-worn yellow pack, moving to her mother's sideto give a small bow to the gray-haired man, "Hello, my name is Higurashi, Kagome."_

_His left eyebrow rose just a small bit, unknowingly to her, as he smiled at her, "Gottschalk, Nightmare."_

_Raising her head to look at him, she couldn't help the utter confusion over meeting such a person with the type of name he had. She righted herself and bit her bottom lip as her brow furrowed together._

_Her mother tilted her head to the side as she smiled at the man, holding out an offered cup of tea that he accepted with a thanks and smile, "'Gottschalk'.. Is that German by any chance?"_

_Nightmare looked at his hostess, "Yes, I believe so."_

Her breathing stilled when the sounds of footsteps and rustling vegetation entered her ears. Acting on instinct, the oriental girl hid behind the closest tree, heart pounding as she stared straight in front of her, not daring to look at whatever or whoever had made their way to where she was.

"I could've sworn that there was something here.."

"Really?"

Kagome bit her bottom lip as she listened to the what sounded like to be three people, two of which.. _They sounded like children!_ She ignored the sharp copper taste of blood coating the tip of her tongue as it entered her mouth to mix with her saliva, as well as trail down her chin.

She had to wonder, what did they look like? Her lip release, Kagome pressed herself up against the tree some more as she tried her hardest to look around it to where she had just been—the sudden silence was starting to unnerve here.

She gave a very unbecoming squeak as she came face-to-face with a fuchsia-haired male, falling back onto the ground, cat ears atop his head twitching curiously as he stared at her.

"She looks like she could be related to you two."

Two sets of eyes peered around the odd cat-person, one red and the other blue, and then Kagome was able to see just what it was that the people talking looked like. They really were children, adorable ones at that. _They looked older than Shippou had when they first had him join the ragtag group.._

"I don't see it."

"Neither do I."

Kagome gave the trio a leveled sour glare, opting to stay silent, fingers curling into fists-making trails in the soil as they did so. Well, aren't they a charming bunch.

"Hm?" She could feel the need to touch and tweak those pierced cat ears as they zoned in on her person as her heart calmed down from the surprised increase it had.

"What is it?"

"Yeah! What?"

The gold-eyed male crouched down to her level, arms resting on his thighs as his tail waved back and forth, "Your heart.. So you're the foreigner?"

The twins gave the black-haired girl their complete rapt interest towards her, "So she's like onee-san, Boris?"

This Boris gave a large Cheshire Cat grin, and looked over at the twins, "Yeah~"

Kagome jerked back when the pink-haired male stood up and extended a hand out to her. She backed up from the trio, ignoring their confused stares, and used a nearby tree to get up on her own and bolt from the area—anywhere from them.

In hind sight, that most likely wasn't the brightest thing that she had done since coming to this Country of Hearts. However, she wanted to be alone—unfortunately, she had done the same thing not that long ago to a man with a clock earring.

Kagome silently cursed to herself as a small inkling of guilt gnawed on the outermost parts of her heart, conscience berating her for being rude to someone she didn't even know. Pausing at a tree, the blue-eyed girl looked up to the sky, eyes widening as what was once a clear noon sky abruptly darkened, thousands of stars glittering as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Sighing, she looked around her, trying to recall which way it was that she had come from after running out on the clock man.

A cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck as the realization of being lost dawned on her.

* * *

><p>Kagome heaved a sigh as the sky once again changed on her for the umpteenth time, foot snapping a twig in half as she made her way in a general direction of where she had come from.<p>

The only thing she had remembered of where she left was that there were several towers surrounding a larger central one.

A frown marred her features as she put a hand to her mouth. Thinking about it reminded her of a clock, much like the one the man had dangling from his left ear. What kind of a world had she been dragged to?

Her footsteps turned aggressive as her thoughts fell back onto the incubus, hands itching to wring his neck. Her feet ached as she let go of her anger for now, walking around a tree, before a smile broke out on her face as she spotted the building she had left.

"Are you visiting Julius also?"

The smile fell from her face as Kagome looked in the direction of the voice, having to look _up_ at the brunette's red eyes, _"Excuse me?"_

The tall man gave her a smile, not at all looking agitated with having to explain, "This is the Clock Tower. Surely you must have business with Julius if you're here."

The blue-eyed girl gave a somewhat forced smile to the man, _"Yeah, I'm here to visit.. Julius."_

"Ah, so am I!" He took her elbow in his hand, "Let's go see him together, then~"

Kagome didn't have much of a chance to protest or make any sort of comment as she was pulled along by the brunette towards the Clock Tower.

* * *

><p><strong>I made a reference to the bad ending for Nightmare in one of the games (I forget how many he's in), but of course, it's changed to fit the story. I apologise if the italics are irritating, but it just shows that Kagome is speaking Japanese. It irritates me putting HTML around her dialogue on my phone as it slows how fast I type up the chapters. I edited this the best that I could.<strong>


	3. Chapter 2

_Inuyasha_ © Rumiko Takahashi  
><em>JokerClover/Heart no Kuni no Alice _© QuinRose

* * *

><p>The air was tense and the awkward atmosphere weighed down on the shoulders of just about everyone in the room. The only one that didn't seem to be affected was the brunette-Ace, as he'd been introduced to her-and he had left after having given Julius a few clocks. Kagome bore holes through the white table cloth of the round table across from the desk where the long-haired man was situated, working on a broken clock.<p>

_"Julius?"_ She felt horrible for bothering the stoic man while he was working, but once he looked up at her, pausing in what he was doing, Kagome continued, _"Is there anything that I could do to help?"_

The man used a knuckle to push up his square-rimmed glasses, "You don't need to worry, you don't need to do anything."

The blue-eyed girl frowned at the man, _"Are you sure? It just doesn't feel right just sitting here while you work.."_

Julius said nothing to that for a time, holding the oriental female's stare evenly before he looked back down at the desk with the clock he was currently repairing, "You're the guest."

Kagome closed her eyes and shook her head, _"That doesn't matter! I want to help either way!"_

The soft sigh from the man burned dully in her ears, "If your mind won't be changed.. what do you know about clocks?"

The black-haired female smiled in Julius's direction, _"Only the basics, but I am willing to learn~"_

"And about making coffee?"

She tilted her head to the side as she put a finger to her chin, _"I can make it well enough, as well as meals too."_

The mortician nodded, and set his tools down on his desk, "I'll show you where the kitchen is, then."

Kagome stood up from the round table, moving to push her chair in as she watched the long-haired male make his way over to her, to usher her to follow him. Her blue eyes were bright as she was happy to at least assist the man in some way-even if it was just to make him coffee for late nights to keep him awake.

Despite her best efforts to pay attention to where they were going, Kagome couldn't help to looked around at the halls they were taking, wondering at their lack of distinctive decorations. Perhaps he could let her put up some things to make it less.. boring.

* * *

><p>She stood expectantly in front of Julius's desk, watching as he took his first sip of the coffee that she had made. The silence was thick and tense, the blue-eyed girl felt as if she could cut it with a knife if she really wanted to. A frown settled onto her lips as she watched him set the white mug down, and picked up his tools. <em>Well, he was being rude-<em>

"Eighty-three points."

Kagome blinked, _"Excuse me?"_

Julius looked up from her from behind his spectacles, "The score for the coffee was eighty-three points out of a hundred."

She found her head tilting to the side in confusion; however, she couldn't help but flashback to the grades she would get during school while continually traveling back and forth in time. A smile replaced the confused frown, _"That's one of the best grades I'd gotten in the last two years~"_

The clockmaker made a sound in the back of his throat, "Do better next time."

_"All right."_ Kagome couldn't tell if that was criticism or encourage, but with how it'd been since she first arrived here, she couldn't stop the small spark of optimism and took the statement as a form of encouragement. Moving to the door to bring the small tray back to the kitchen, she turned back to the quiet male, _"Is there any place for me to sleep by any chance?"_

_Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned fatigue as her eyelids felt like iron weights.._

"Yes. Would you like me to show you?"

Kagome waved a hand at him, _"No, no, I don't want to get in the way of your work."_

Julius sighed, and sat back in his chair, tools on the desk as he moved to slide off his gloves. Blue eyes watched him intently as he clapped, before she had to close her eyes, faintly hearing a _tick-tock_ as a wind accompanied the sound. Gripping the tray with white-knuckled hands, Kagome's brow furrowed as she felt a small weight settle on one of her arms as the wind and _tick-tock_ faded away.

Slowly opening her eyes and catching sight of the stoic man placing his gloved back on, the black-haired girl felt a small wave of astonishment settle in her mind at the sight of a simple lavender nightgown draped over one of her arms, _"Um.."_

"There is a room on the level above this one that is available. Just go up the stairs and it's the second door on the right. There's a bathroom across the hall from the room."

Kagome gave the man a bright smile despite her need for sleep, _"Thank you~!"_

The man focused intently on his work, "Think nothing of it."

Her mood considerably higher, she shut the door behind her with a skip to her step as she went to the kitchen before following the direction she had been given to the guest bedroom.

She definitely wanted to help him out now for giving her a room and night clothes to use.

* * *

><p>Lying in the large bed, the oriental woman stared at the wall, lost in thought, thinking back to the three she had a run-in with before wandering back in the direction of the Clock Tower. More specifically, the cat ears of the fuchsia-haired male. Her fingers twitched as a faint blush dusted her cheeks-however, she merely wrote that off as being tired.<p>

_The piercings.. _Kagome couldn't help but wonder if those had hurt as much as piercing human ears would. Fingering the couple piercings she had gotten recently in her own, it wasn't so much a pain as it was a pinch. Still, she knew from Inuyasha that animal ears were sensitive, so that might intensify the pinch to pain?

Closing her eyes-and feeling as if she wouldn't open then up again for the life of her-the black-haired girl filed the thoughts away for another time. _Now was the time for sleeping, Kagome._

As her mind numbed to sleep, she couldn't help, but wonder about the world that she was in - a world with people with cat ears.

_It almost felt like home in the smallest of instances.._

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><p><strong>Has it really been four days since I updated this? Damn, it only felt like one. My sense of time is out of whack, seriously. I have lots of ideas for drabbles and one-shots for <em>Tabula Rasa<em>~ I love you too much _Durarara_ to hate the creativity! The shimeji took over my desktop in the meantime..  
><strong>


	4. Chapter 3

_Inuyasha_ © Rumiko Takahashi  
><em>JokerClover/Heart no Kuni no Alice_© QuinRose

* * *

><p>Setting down the white mug on the clockmaker's desk the following morning, Kagome moved to sit down at the round table in the room with the map that Julius had set out for her to look at. She was able to come to the conclusions of where what was and just what the map had on it by the shapes. Her blue eyes made their way back to the aerial view of the Clock Tower.<p>

_It really did look like a clock.._

"Eighty-six points."

Kagome gave a smile at the score, it wasn't much of an increase, but she wasn't going to complain at how small it was.

Hands abruptly covered her eyes, making her brow tick once before she turned her head to look at the likely culprit.

_Those cat ears were calling to her._

Karma gave an awkward smile, "Hello."

The fuchsia-haired male moved to her side and crouched down, looking up at her curiously, "Hi. I don't believe I got your name.."

Karma offered him her hand, "Kagome. Higurashi, Kagome."

He grasped her's in a firm grip, "Boris Airay~"

"Shouldn't you be at the Amusement Park?"

The two looked over at Julius who was watching them, having looked up from his work to take another sip of his coffee. One of Boris's ears gave a twitch as he gave a lopsided grin to the mortician, "I should be, but I wanted to introduce myself to Kagome."

"What led you to believe that she was here?"

Gold eyes looked to the ceiling, a finger to his chin, "An assumption. I mean, the Clock Tower is the only neutral territory in this Country, so why not reside here if one's a foreigner?"

Sipping his coffee again, the long-haired man gave a deadpanned stare over the rim of his mug, opting to stay silent at the answer. Kagome turned to the punk-fashioned cat, "Would you like anything?"

His attention off of Julius, Boris gave a wide smile to the black-haired girl, "I was wondering if I could bring you to the Amusement Park, show you around and all that. Take a burden off of the clockmaker's shoulders, if you will."

"That does make sense.." Kagome tumbled the idea around in her thoughts for a moment before turning to the landlord if you will, "Would that be all right?"

"Why are you asking?"

"It's polite and you've allowed me to stay here."

"You don't have to ask.."

She gave him a smile, before turning to the guest, "I'll go~"

Boris stood and stretched, "Good! Why don't you bring the map so I can explain it to you on the way?"

Blue eyes glanced at Julius quickly as she stood, her only answer being a shooing motion of his hand, not even looking up from his work that she translated as 'go ahead.'

Following the cat out of the tower, they only paused so that Kagome could retrieve her shoes. She tugged on the skirt of the dress that she was wearing, still wondering why there was clothing in the dresser in the room that Julius had let her use.

Her eyes moved to the map that Boris dramatically opened from it's rolled-up form it had put in moments before when they were leaving, "All right!"

He pointed to what she could only presume as their destination, the closest one to the Clock Tower, "Here is the Amusement Park. It's run by my boss, you could say, Gowland."

"What's he like?" Kagome couldn't hold her tongue, finding it easy to talk to Boris as he went out of his way to introduce himself after their horrible meeting the first time.

He scratched one of his ears with a hand, "Don't let him play any instrument for you.. He's kinda horrible. Also, don't mention anything close to or resembling the name 'Blood Dupre.' That'll have bad consequences as well."

She nodded her head, "I have a feeling that I'm going to end up pestering you with questions, but whose that?"

Boris held up the a finger on the hand that he had scratched his ear with, "Don't worry about the questions~ That's the next part of my explanation."

He pointed to what looked like a manor or something along those lines, "This is the Hatter Mansion. The twins that were with me when we first ran into each other are the Gatekeepers there; Tweedle Dee and Dum are their names - the Bloody Twins. Blood Dupre is a mafioso, the boss to be exact. His right hand is the March Hare, Elliot March."

"There's a mafia here?"

"Yup."

"I'm glad I hadn't run into them then.."

Boris readjusted which hand held the map to pat the girl on her shoulder, "Well, you met the Gatekeepers, but they visit the Amusement Park like I attend tea parties held at the mansion."

Kagome looked up at Boris, "You make it sound like the Amusement park and the Hatter Mansion are enemies."

"We're in a power struggle." The cat-eared individual pointed to a heart-shaped structure, "but let's not forget the Castle of Hearts, also involved in the power struggle."

The oriental female nodded, staring at the map, "Who resides there?"

"That'd be the Queen of Hearts-Vivaldi-along with the White Rabbit Peter White, Ace and the King." Boris paused briefly before resuming talking, "Peter is the Prime Minister, while Ace is the Knight. White had also been the one to bring the previous foreigner here, Alice Liddell is her name."

"Alice?" Kagome blinked, "That reminds me of hat one book about an Alice falling into Wonderland after chasing after a white rabbit."

"Really?" His pierced cat ears perked, "Well, the Alice who'd been here before was brought here against her will. She didn't have much of a choice, evidently."

"That reminds me of what happened to me back home."

His cat-based curiosity was piqued, "What happened to you back in your home?"

Kagome sheepishly poked at one of her cheeks, "I was forced into something that put a large responsibility on my shoulders, is all."

"I see.." He really wanted to know more, but held his tongue.

Blue eyes looked at the map, "How come the Clock Tower isn't apart of this power struggle?"

"That's because the Clock Tower is neutral in all of this."

"Oh right.. You mentioned something about that earlier to Julius."

The cat nodded, "So you were paying attention~"

As much as she wanted to feel the tiniest bit insulted, Kagome gave a small smile at the teasing tone of voice that Boris used with her, "So how close are we to the Amusement Park?"

"Not that far," Her male companion took one of her wrists in his hand, tugging on it to speed up her pace, "Come on~"

* * *

><p>It reminded her of the amusement parks back home; however, being approached by faceless people slightly irked her. Being stopped by them was slightly daunting as she didn't know where to direct her eyes, especially as they asked her if she was she new foreigner and a few other passing comments about her appearance.<p>

Boris looked back at the park attendees, "Getting more than one foreigner in a game must be really something.."

"Game?"

"Yeah, currently we're in a game. There has been previous games before this one."

Kagome blinked, "That's.. rather odd, to be honest, but that's normal here, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Is that part of the reason why the people that came up to us didn't have faces?" _There was so many things here that were different than back home.._

"Mhm~ Only Role Holders have faces, as we're important to the game."

"So you're a Role Holder." Kagome stated, staring at Boris's face as they stopped walking at this point, "But what if you were to.. die?"

"I'd be replaced."

"Replaced? But people can't just be fixed like toys."

Boris rubbed the back of his head, "He didn't tell you, did he?"

"Who?"

"Julius." Boris gripped the girl's hand in one of his, "I might as well explain for him."

"Wha-?"

Boris rested her palm on his chest directly over his heart, inquiring her to rest her head next to it, feeling like this was important.

_Tick. Tock._

"A.. clock?"

"Yeah."

Kagome took her head away from Boris's chest, silent as she allowed herself to be lead to a nearby table near a food vender. Her other hand came up to rest on her own chest, feeling the steady pulsing beneath skin, muscle, and bone. She took her bottom lip between her teeth before releasing it, "Is that why I'm a foreigner? Because I have an actual heart and not a clock?"

She looked up to Boris's face in curiosity, "I'm surprised you're taking it so well, but yes. Foreigner are rather endeared to the people here because of that fact though! So it's not a bad thing to have a heart."

"I see.." Kagome reach both hands up, startling the cat, and taking a firm hold of his ears - stroking and tweaking them as a small blush dusted her cheeks in excitement as Boris settled after a few moments. Inuyasha never really liked having his ears touched, and the only time she ever was when he was still pinned..

Kagome paused as she noticed his tail in her peripheral vision, before childishly reaching for it with one hand, but not quite read to relinquish her hold on the one ear.

"P-perhaps we would go on a ride?" Blue eyes didn't lose their shine with the distraction, and she found herself agreeing without really thinking it through.

"What ride shall we go on first?"

* * *

><p><em>Oh, the horror!<em>

Kagome felt as if her ears were going to start bleeding soon. A break from riding roller coasters and other miscellaneous rides led to her and Boris being found by Gowland, and the excitement of meeting another foreigner had him playing a song on what seemed to be a fiddle.

She wasn't the only one feeling this way, Boris was suffering just as much as she, if not more.

The torture went on for who knows how much longer before the so-called song Gowland was performing was over and he was looking at them expectantly.

Kagome gave a weak smile, not quite sure what to say other than good. She wasn't sure if she would have been able to tell him the truth to his face, and would have felt bad at insulting.

_A little white lie never drastically hurt anyone, right?_

She really hoped so. Her ears wouldn't stop ringing and she felt marginally more deaf than when she had entered the Amusement Park.

"Sorry 'bout him. Want me to walk you back to the Clock Tower?" Boris asked some time after Gowland left, one hand rubbing the back of one of his animalistic ears.

"I don't want to make you go out of your way.."

He gave a nonsense wave of his hand, "I brought you out here, so it's the least I could do. Can't have you getting lost now can I?"

Kagome gave a quiet sigh, not able to fight his reasoning, "Sure."

Leading her out of the park, the silence between the two was comfortable. Kagome now held the rolled-up map in her hand, as Boris had been in possession of it earlier. Looking over her shoulder, she blinked at the flash of what seemed to be the top of a head-with two brown furry things on either side-before it ducked behind a tree.

_Well, wasn't this the interesting day._

As much as she wanted to give Boris a hug, Kagome felt her molesting his ears and tail earlier was more than enough for one day, "Thank you for shown me the Amusement park and explaining about this world to me."

The taller of the two patter her on her head, "You're welcome~ You're welcome at the park anytime, so don't hesitate to drop by."

She closed her eyes as she flashed him a smile, "All right! And thank you again."

"You're welcome!"

She watched him leave, before he did a disappearing act once he reached the shadows of the trees in the setting sun-almost melding in with them, only his eyes showing before they too faded.

_He really was the Cheshire Cat, just like in the book.._

Making her way up the Clock Tower, and taking her shoes off at the entrance out of habit, Kagome made her way to where Julius was sure to be working, bent over his desk as he fixed the clocks brought to him.

She poked her cheek when she arrived, catching sight of him sleeping, head on her folded arms, tools still in his hands. Sighing, she made her way over to the desk, and shook the man awake.

"I'm not sure he'd be happy to be shaken awake."

Freezing, the oriental female looked over her shoulder at the gray-haired incubus.

"What are you doing here?"

* * *

><p><strong>EDIT: Fixed some very minor things, added some things as well<strong>

**I can't stop writing chapters for this on my phone~ At least on my phone, there's no word count. Time keeps getting away from me.. Sad. Yes, more characters will be introduced since they were talked about in this chapter. Boris is a wonderful breaking-the-ice kind of character~ There is a reason why Kagome's dialogue is no longer italicized, but that shall be discussed later.  
><strong>


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